take the fire out
by miyui-chan
Summary: As it seems on the surface - it's an alpha and an omega meeting in a bar. That's barely scratching the surface for both of them though. (Kakashi, Obito, and a bar in Spice Country. Kakaobi. A/B/O.)


**take the fire out**

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Kakashi hasn't been out of Fire in ages - ten months and counting, after the last disastrous trip to Wave.

Out of country trips used to be commonplace - he might be years out of ANBU, but the essential skill of throwing stuff together in under ten minutes still comes easy. Assassinations on shady members of neighbouring countries don't wait for anyone, and at times, shady assassination orders of slightly more reputable members of neighbouring countries don't wait either.

That's another story; another fight for another day, though.

The scroll with the order lives on in ashes in the Hokage office, likely carried out the window with the breeze, and in his mind. The chill sits heavy in his chest. Kakashi's not - not excited exactly for the mission, chasing down the Akatsuki is never a fun ordeal exactly, but for what it means to Naruto and his team and everyone in Konoha - it's something vindictively cold that burns.

He packs lightly for the mission - a few scrolls for weapons, clothing, and - he double checks - the suppressants are in place. It, for all purposes, is basically an ANBU mission, all but nominally.

_Employ masks_, the scroll says. _We believe it is of benefit that Court Members in the Land of Spice do not know the identities of our shinobi_. It leaves it off there - no further explanation.

Kakashi bites back a laugh - he packs his tanto in, as well as his Hound mask, and lets the coldness seep back into his limbs and down, down, into his bones. Not an ANBU mission, his ass.

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Sukea is born five in the morning, six weeks after Minato-sensei dies, with Kakashi just off an ANBU patrol shift.

Kakashi is tired. The shadows reach into him and pull at the last vestiges of energy and chakra he isn't even aware he had, drags him down and down until he barely remembers going through the motions of reporting in and shedding gear, and even then his hands still feel sticky with blood.

He makes it to the bed in his apartment - too sparsely furnished, unlived in - and right, he's only been here two times in the past four months.

This marks the third.

Kakashi wraps the thin covers closer around himself, tries to force the fit of his skin better; tighter. Tells himself that he can't crawl out of himself that way.

In the morning, he has nothing better to do other than collect two month's worth of pay, and pick his way into the apparel shop the old lady from two apartments down runs.

"For a new mission soon, dear?" she asks, ringing in what he's grabbed - an ash brown wig, a rack above a shoulder length dark brown that Kakashi can still remember running fingers through in the training grounds, exhausted, in a giddy way, after a long day with Obito yelling in the background and-

There's also an ugly green coat. Safer than Gai's garish green, and that's easier to focus on.

Kakashi fights back the urge to be sick. He dips his head, lets his eyes crinkle slightly in a way the client from the last mission had called sweet. Endearing. "Yes, and can you believe there's a courtesan - prettiest blue eyes I've seen - in Wind who remembered the last time I helped her a few years ago and specifically requested me? Says it's an escort request and it's a hefty bit too. Reckon I'll be fighting any spurned old missing-nin lovers and have to sweep her off her feet into the sunset?"

The old lady snorts, omega scent drier, but softer with age. Like clean linen. She swats a hand at Kakashi. "My memory hasn't gone yet, and the last time you came back from Wind, you told me you met a lady with the ugliest personality you've ever had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting. Now," she says, turning around to rummage behind her desk, "run along. I've got work to do."

Kakashi smiles as he leaves the shop - it slides off a few seconds later as the cool, dry air hits his face.

The only mission he's got are the pieces of paperwork the Commander won't stop giving him hell about.

And this is Sukea now, three years later, taking breaths here and there when Kakashi finds it too much - Kakashi gets home and digs out the the contact lenses from under his bathroom counter, and then makes his way over to his closet.

Sukea takes form five minutes later, and Kakashi tilts his head. Something missing. He digs through deeper - and there - a scarf he hasn't worn since his jounin promotion, since it'd been too big and too white.

Sukea has no reason to worry about blood getting on a scarf, so Kakashi winds it around his neck - it's to protect his throat; no, it's a fashion accessory - closes his eyes.

Sukea opens them.

The coat is scratchy, coarse. It is, in all ways, from dressing up for missions to dressing up for another morning in the grey of Konoha at five in the morning, akin to ritual suicide.

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Kakashi makes his way to Spice, and sees nothing but trees giving way to smaller and sparser woodlands as he gets closer to where Akatsuki's been sighted.

He and the other three jounin reach the rendezvous point with the informant with a day to spare before the suspected interference of the Akatsuki. He changes into Sukea's guise that night - there's a few bars nearby, and bars always equal information.

Sukea sees the target long after the target first sees him.

This, of course, is grounds for a lot of concern if it weren't for the gleam in the target's eye as he makes his way closer - close enough so his face is inches away from Sukea's throat.

Kakashi fights back the urge to twist away and tuck in on himself - no shinobi would be caught dead with their throat out on display like the civilian whores do, but this isn't a shinobi bar. He'd only be begging to have his disguise shot.

The man in the garish orange mask slips into the seat beside him and, had it been anywhere else, he'd dismiss the man as almost inconsequential, but then he catches his first good mouthful of the other man's scent. It's heady, electric - the air after a thunderstorm, and distinctly alpha.

It's so heavy and pressing that Kakashi doesn't connect it to the simpering figure in front of him, head tilted at such an outlandish angle that Kakashi's surprised he hasn't sprained his neck - he looks so ridiculous, the intel said that Akatsuki's Tobi doesn't have any notable abilities, but-

That's foolish too, isn't it? What shinobi worth their salt keeps all their cards laid out on the table?

And - Kakashi's willing to shelf this assessment of the threat going up, since he hasn't met anyone with a scent this heady outside of the Third and Minato-sensei and Orochimaru, even more so since he deserted. It's angrier and wilder than the clean ocean breeze Kakashi associates with Itachi, who's by far become a terror.

"What's pretty thing like you doing sitting all alone here?" the man says, and the delivery is comically offbeat.

Sukea looks up through his lashes. His mouth quirks a little, and he makes no little show of appreciating the gaze that pins him in place. The alpha - he's not trying, but something makes his throat dry. "I think you're just trying to flatter me," he says, evenly, if not a little coyly. Shifts, tosses his head a little, so to let his own scent disperse more.

The masked man blinks. "Ah, but Deidara-senpai said that line's a hooker, line, and sink! Or - did Tobi get it wrong? Was it hook, line, and sinker?"

Sukea blinks. Smiles slowly. "Delivery could use some work, maybe?"

"Ahhh, so that's what Senpai was talking about!" The man jabs a finger in the air, and then clenches it into a fist, letting it hit the open palm of his other hand in an 'aha' gesture.

It's going to be a long night.

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And the information gathering is easy. So easy that Kakashi's instantly on guard - taking the little tidbits like "we're going to be here for another day I think? Senpai says we can't play, boo." Turns them over and over in his head until he's got three meanings of each of them lined up, but still has time to double guess and discard the second and third meanings anyway.

The masked man tilts his head once again at an angle that reminds Kakashi of a bird - of the time his father took him on a hunting trip when he'd been five and they'd spotted a hawk perched on the branch of a nearby tree, halting in its preening to give Sakumo and Kakashi a once over.

He's so transparently there in each of his actions that Kakashi can't pick apart any tells of false trails or lying, except for the fact that this is a member of the Akatsuki, which means he can't be a fool like he's acting-

"Hey, Pretty Eyes? How long are you staying?"

Sukea waves a hand. "Just passing through; there's not much to take pictures of in this town, is there?"

"What? Is Tobi not pretty enough for you?"

"No no, plenty pretty and prettily orange," Sukea assures him. "And an element of mystery's always intriguing, huh?"

The man - Tobi - nods. It's hard to reconcile the masked man - alpha, scent heady and dangerous and close, sitting loosely but still shinobi still beside Kakashi even if he's doing a good job at acting drunk, with the page in the Bingo Book. "Pretty cool right?" the man says, fingering his mask.

It's a quiet, charged sort of peace.

"Tobi knows some pretty places to take pictures. There's none in Spice though."

"Yeah, it's kinda bleak and just foresty aside from the bars, isn't it?"

"Forests are… nice," Tobi says mulishly.

"I guess they can be, but I grew up in Fire. The trees are grander. So big you can wrap your arms around the trunk and you wouldn't even be able to get half."

Tobi tenses. Nearly imperceptible, but they're nearly leaning into each other at this point and Kakashi does have to admit he smells nice. Soothing.

"Tobi's heard the trees are pretty! Tall and green and - oh like the green caves in Mist too."

Kakashi catches the scent of blood, so Kakashi chases. Drops, lightly, innocently: "Have you been to Fire before? It's really such a nice place."

It's. It's not, but it's home. And that's something.

"Tobi wants to! Tobi wants to see pretty things. Tobi wants to always see pretty things." He catches a strand of Sukea's hair through his hands - gloved. Cards it through, and moves back slightly, but Kakashi moves with him. "Maybe Senpai will will take Tobi there one day?"

"You should come. You could come visit me," Sukea suggests, leaning forward more, looking up through his lashes - it's basic, but it works wonders for the most part. The man swallows, looks away briefly. Kakashi's got him. He's laying it on so thick, but - he thinks it's okay. "Sometimes it gets a bit lonely."

The man clearly comes back to his senses at that, in such a sudden way that Kakashi's still feeling the whiplash. That wasn't. Expected. His scent's sharper, colder, a bit sadder. Still, the way he hides it behind the comical farce is commendable.

A little patronizing in the way he asks, deceptively light, "Yeah? And what do you know about loneliness?"

Fuck. Kakashi's stepped on a landmine.

The silent anger of the alpha's crashing over him like a tidal wave. "Some things," Kakashi says slowly, because there's a part of him bristling that anyone would insinuate he doesn't understand what it's like to love and to fail and to lose. If it were anyone else, anywhere else, Kakashi should be asking the question. "Everyone left."

For a second, he thinks he's going to get his throat ripped out, metaphorically or physically.

"Left?" the alpha says, pulling up short. Harsh, but confused.

"My-my two best friends. We played together, grew up together, and then all of a sudden they were drafted into the Daimyo's army and I didn't even get to say goodbye," Kakashi says, and it ends almost in a snarl, except he reins it back and he's not sure what part of him thought it'd be a good idea to share Rin and Obito with this Akatsuki alpha he's met for all of ten minutes in person.

"I-" The alpha's still. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says, and the worst is that he sounds like he means it, and Kakashi's not sure what to do in the fact of that. "You didn't deserve that judgement."

Kakashi blinks.

"I shouldn't- I shouldn't have said what I said when I didn't know your story."

It's the most anyone's allowed Kakashi in an eternity.

"I had two friends as well," the man says, voice low, a whispered secret in the din of the bar. "Played and grew up with them too, I guess you could say they decided one day that I wasn't good enough for them? Left to go somewhere I couldn't follow either."

Kakashi's got a hand sliding up the arm of the man and the alpha doesn't seem to realize, or care. He wants to laugh - some connection, some understanding, and it's in the middle of fuck knows where, with an alpha that's an international wanted criminal, and it doesn't matter .

The man clenches his hand on the wood so hard Kakashi's scared it's going to crack.

"They betrayed me! And- sometimes I just wish I could have said goodbye too and I don't know why - they don't deserve it, don't deserve this-"

Kakashi catches his hand, brings it close, and unravels his fingers, and the man lets him. Kakashi brings his hand up until he can brush his lips lightly across the backs of the man's knuckles, and pulls him to his feet.

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The first thing that registers is the heat and it doesn't stop. It washes over him like a furnace, like he's been lit ablaze by the pads of the strange alpha's fingers, and he tucks his nose into the scent of after-the-storm, electricity, and safety.

God. He wants this, wants it, wants the fire to consume him.

Kakashi hasn't burned like this since he was thirteen and confused, new off the loss of one of his teammates and treated like broken glass by everyone else, and then he'd presented. His first heat strikes sometime in the middle of the night, and he wakes up in hell, sweating, empty, and aching.

The haze sets in quick, and he doesn't have any memories of how the day goes, but he remembers when it breaks that night and Minato-sensei's by his side, beta scent soothing and wrapping around him as he settles a cool cloth on Kakashi's forehead.

This isn't anything like that. It's-it's the same in some ways but so much more, and he's not even in heat - Kakashi just wants to get closer, wants to crawl under this alpha's skin and slide next to his heart and listen to its beat march. Wants to get close enough that he'll forget how he's an omega and feels like half of a person sometimes.

The thought halts in its steps as the man licks a trail down Kakashi's neck. It's - it's too close to discomfort and the last, rational vestiges of his brain is screaming - too close to marking, too close to being shackled, but Kakashi opens his mouth, lets the whine fall out in a breathy noise.

He just - he wants.

Wants one moment to himself, of not having to worry about control for one second, and to just lose himself, mission be damned, and have this memory.

What harm can it do?

"Lower," he gasps, and the man obliges, the heat blossoms. "Lower, ah-" and the electricity races down through his heart, and he throws his head back.

The man pulls the white undershirt over Kakashi's head. He looks at Kakashi for a long moment - Kakashi wonders what's even there to see about Sukea, he's made him unassuming on purpose - and Kakashi places a hand on the alpha's chest carefully. Even mission be damned, it's not hard to remember this man is Akatsuki; no matter how casually he might talk, his eyes are just as sharp as any seasoned shinobi Kakashi's run into. He's not rebuked, and, growing braver, slides it to thread it in the alpha's hair-

There's a faint growl. "Careful," he says, and Kakashi stills slightly, the command heavy. The mask? He thinks the alpha means leave the mask. Kakashi nods - quick and uncertain, as Sukea would.

The alpha presses in and slants a careful kiss against Kakashi's mouth - almost innocent in the way he doesn't press and Kakashi opens his mouth to pant against him, turns it more obscene. He chases after the alpha as the other draws back minutely; he catches Kakashi's eye, and second later, decision made, closes the distance like a starved man.

Kakashi tightens the hand in the alpha's hair. He tips his head more, and a scrape of teeth against his navel as the man travels down has him moaning in a loud and embarrassing way he hasn't on a mission since never. He curls over the man, draws him up, and presses a kiss to the corner of his mask, and then down the side of his neck-

-and then there's a hardness pressing against the tent in his pants and he can't think past the way the boundaries dissolve and the blaze beat against his skin like waves against shore. "Want you inside," he gasps out, and the man responds just as fervent.

"Smell so good," he murmurs into the hollow of Kakashi's throat once more, as he's easing himself in. "S-say my name." Kakashi's whining, gasping, the heat almost hurts, and in the moment the waves crest and break into white, it's Obito's name that spills out from his lips.

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Tobi's gone by the time Kakashi wakes up the next morning, and there's no Akatsuki interference for the rest of the mission.

Physically, there's nothing that goes wrong with the mission - the debrief handed back states a textbook success.

"Did we learn anything of importance regarding the Akatsuki or its members? Their incentives?"

Kakashi remembers two friends, and a betrayal.

"No sir," he says. "Encounter with one Akatsuki member, nothing of significance."

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**a/n:** crossposted here~ i don't own any of the characters, and please leave a review if you enjoyed it~~ since i've been asked quite a bit before, essentially, yes, i think obito does freak out a little bit and is probably feeling a little betrayed and horrified with himself, but i think - in the nature of this anonymous meeting, decides to spare kakashi just as kakashi spares him at the end. it's a fight for another day, because they're meeting as tobi and sukea, not obito and kakashi.


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